Jason Aron
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I'm just into what interests other people. And that's what I think a good story is. I think far too often things are a little too artsy, you know? And I think that artsy really is nothing more than saying it's just so niche.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
It's a weird place to be. What's something cool that most people don't know about Michael J. Fox? Oh, I think now when you see him with the disease, everyone's like, oh, is he okay? You know, like, how was it? His mind, he is sharp as a tack. Like, you know, he has a physical disease.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But, you know, when you see the tremors and you see the shaking, I think to a viewer it makes you uncomfortable. But when you're kind of...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
a foot away from him and talking he's just he's that guy yeah he's still that guy and i know he's in a lot of pain and um obviously he's basically given up on acting except for sort of weird either commercial things or one-off appearances but um it's it's sad i i i liken him to i think this is Crazy opinion here.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I think that Michael J. Fox would have had about 50% of the roles that Jason Bateman's had in the last 10 years.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I don't know why, but that came to me one day, and I'm like, I'm positive. I feel like they're in the same lane. And, you know, Michael J. Fox is Michael J. Fox. I feel like he would have had so many of those roles. Agree. And Jason Bateman tries hard to kind of be the bad guy, too. I think he wants that for himself. Yeah. You know, even like a role like he had in Ozark, let's say.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
You know, he's he's good, but he's bad. Right. I don't know that Michael J. Fox fits into those roles, but I feel like so many parts I've seen Jason Bateman have and he's blown up. He's huge. Of course, that would have been Michael J. Fox.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
In college, I was that guy sitting, editing music. I was a DJ in college for a while. That kind of pushed me somehow into web design and graphic design. This is the... early 2000s. And I was an OK graphic designer. I was OK. I was all right. I could still work my way around Illustrator and Photoshop. But that allowed me a platform to, you know, this is still the early, this is before Canva, right?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
No planning, right place, right time. What's fun about my career is that I did not stay in one lane. I think that's my brain that just fires in a million different directions all the time. And it's funny, I'll run into somebody on a pickleball court and they say, oh, what do you do? Like, totally out of context. And I just say, video production. Because I don't even... What do you say?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And they're like, oh, that's cool. They're like, yeah, it's fine. Let's just end it.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But yeah, no, so we... I had gotten into a lot of live production after the documentary just because it was, again, a natural progression of my career. I was doing live production when I was shooting weddings still. I would get the weird phone call like, hey, I know you do like some live stream stuff. And this is before live streams, live stream.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
My grandma can't make it up from Florida for the wedding. Could we live stream the wedding for her?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And that got me in like really at the ground stages of the prosumer live stream world and equipment and how to and figuring all this stuff out. Believe me, when we got to COVID, it was a great skill to have. I was one of the busiest men on earth during COVID. And I truly believe that. But One of our clients at the time was Showtime.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I was working full-time at an agency, and we were just following their boxing weeks and making little video clips for social media, and that relationship grew into, hey, we have these press conferences after fights, and some guy's throwing it up on Facebook Live on his iPad. Do you guys think you could do something a little better?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And we're like, yeah, we could definitely do something a little better. So... Ultimately, what happened is the agency that I was at, we became Showtime's digital arm for all the ancillary events that were not the fight during the fight week. So that was press conferences, weigh-ins that grew into doing a lot of these pre-shows. So we would do some of the fights.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
So if let's say, you know, for those that don't know. If you ever watch boxing on TV, you see usually four fights, maybe five. Right. But when you go to the stadium, there are 12 fights that happen or 10 fights. It's a long day. Yeah. Long night. Yes. It's a long night.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I mean, it's crazy because, you know, when you turn on that pay-per-view at 9 o'clock, they've usually been fighting since like 4 or 5 o'clock.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And at 4 or 5 o'clock, they're fighting for nobody because the stands are empty. Yeah. You hear like the fighter's mom like, go Mike!
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
That's what it is. Yeah. And... So we started not those fights, but basically like seven to nine. That was us. Yeah. And then, you know, the truck production would take over. So we started doing all that for Showtime and it became very cost effective for them to use a smaller digital crew that didn't have the expense of two trucks and union labor and all this stuff. 20 people. Right. Right.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
and so we would do a lot of times they would do a kickoff press conference for a fight that let's let's just call it a pay-per-view that kind of knew knew would have legs instead of just doing a press conference four days before the fight they would do a press conference right after they announced it like like anything else in sports right you sign a player for a seven-year contract do a press conference so same deal they sign up a big fight we would do the press conference and that was flying all over the place and you know doing these things and i mean
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
again i'm underselling it it became very turnkey and it was it was a very repeatable process and it was great well 2017 floyd mayweather has uh come to the end of his career and decides he's gonna fight conor mcgregor now Anytime Floyd Mayweather was boxing, Floyd Mayweather still boxes these stupid exhibition fights and people still watch and he gets paid a fortune to do it.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
At the time, this was going to be his last professional fight. This was fight number 50. And he was fighting at the time by far the most polarizing, exciting fighter in the UFC, Conor McGregor. And they decided to do a press tour, which not unheard of. It was going to be a four-city press tour, L.A.,
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
New York London and Toronto was a fourth location London was last the other three first we started West and moved East and Floyd had done I think what had done like ten city press tours when he fought like my Donna and stuff like that Shout out to Kelly Swanson who put all those things together for all these years and we were doing this thing and they asked us the digital team to come in and just stream these press conferences because you know
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
This is before everyone could do it themselves. So as long as you could do something, you can make some money. And I was designing a bunch of logos for people and doing business development in the graphic design space. Nothing major. And through that, I'll never forget the day a family friend who had an insurance business said, do you do video? And I said, yeah, of course. I mean –
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
they weren't going to bring in the whole truck production for this. It was too much. And not only that, there needed to be some level of being nimble because we were in LA on Monday and Toronto on Tuesday. You can't move trucks that fast. It's impossible. And Showtime had their own truck. They own their truck for their fight production. So I don't know if that was part of the equation.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Like, well, we can't even physically do this. We'd have to rent broadcast trucks in different cities. So let's just use the guys who do digital stuff. Mick, I was in so far over my head on this. First of all, this was going out to linear television. It was my first experience doing that. We were in these... I say we were in LA and New York. We were at the Staples Center and the Barclays Center.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Those are the locations. And in Toronto, we were at a 10,000-seat amphitheater. It was outdoors. They did a lot of music stuff there and whatever. And I'll tell you a great story from Toronto. But Now I'm playing with the big boys now. Yes, sir. And we're doing these shows.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And I think what Showtime didn't have the forethought to realize, I don't know that anybody did, was this was going to be the biggest thing. Ever. Not in sports. Ever. In pop culture. Ever. Yes. You could not... Fast forward to the fight, which happened over that summer. I remember walking in and we're just on the floor. And I did the post fight. So during the fight, I was just walking around.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And... We were kind of on the floor level, the VIP level, and Roger Clemens walks in with the owner of the Astros. And then I hear somebody behind me, yo, Tobe, Tobe! And I turn around, it's like Tobey Maguire. It's like, all right, Spider-Man's here. Then A-Rod's over there. J-Lo's right there. Jamie Foxx, the other Foxx we mentioned earlier. He's three feet away from me.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Shaq was there, of course. This was the biggest cross-section of... entertainment people that I had ever seen. And I've been to some major boxing events. I've been to the Super Bowl. I've never been at an event where you would just have this feeling, if you're not here tonight, you're nowhere. Because this is it. This is the Mecca. This is the Coliseum in Rome. 500 years ago.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
This is where it was at. And we... That event was just so big, and we ended up streaming like 10 streams for that fight because we did the four, then we did five fight week. And I'll tell you the great Toronto story I'll never forget. There was no backstage area for us to set up. So it was a very big stage in this amphitheater.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
They had the press conference in the middle of the stage, and we're just off on the side of the stage, just behind where the curtains would be, but on the stage. So I'm here, and there's the press conference happening right in front of me. So my whole setup, it's portable. We're on a couple of tables and I'm just sitting there. And also, you wouldn't believe how small of a crew we did this with.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
We had a camera operator on every camera. It was me, my guy, Shai, who ran all the audio stuff. And then I had another technician from our company who didn't really have much live experience, but was like an extra set of hands for me to cut cameras. So that's how I'm like, all right, just press camera two, camera three, camera four.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
That's all he knew, just to press one, two, three, four, five, or whatever it was. That was the whole production crew. That was it.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And then a camera operator on every camera. And it was like, you're telling me you did that for that? Yeah, that's all it was. And it was everywhere.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
um but no i'd never done a single video my entire life and uh and that was it that was the genesis of the whole thing i went out um he wanted a website and a video for the website okay the irony is he ended up hating how he looked on camera which was probably my fault but um he decided after we shot the video that i went out and bought the camera and did the whole thing he decided that uh we were just gonna do a stock video like stock footage video
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
everywhere um you know and of course there's so much media there and they were doing behind you know behind the fight and all that stuff but we were just like i said we were the production crew to actually make that live production was nothing and even still those videos on youtube millions of views yeah but that doesn't even count all the television stations that picked it up all over the world uh you know and their views and whatever it was just it was wild so i'm sitting in toronto i'm on the stage
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I'm at the computer. And like, you know, when you feel somebody coming up on you, like, you know, you kind of have that. I look over my shoulder and I'm like, Drake standing over my shoulder, staring at my computer, just watching me like cut the show out. I'm just like, oh, hey. He's like, hey. It's like, what? That was that press tour.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Just certain things in life that you work on, they just become so much bigger than you could ever imagine. You didn't think that was going to be big when you started it?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
It's interesting because I've gotten to work on some really big fights. And, you know, Javante Davis now is one of the biggest fighters in boxing. Done a ton of his fights. Yeah. The magnitude's just not there, and you hear the stories of, like, Floyd in his prime and what those fight weeks were like or Tyson back in the 90s.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And I worked the Andre Berto fight that Floyd Mayweather fought, which was fight 49. Yeah. That was kind of once we had made our segue into Showtime. Mm-hmm. And, like...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
same guy right it's it's floyd mayweather and that fight was basically a dud he just he just danced yeah he just danced around for most of it threw a couple punches got the win so no i you can't imagine that i mean that fight was and i've talked to so many people i've become friendly with a lot of people working media and you know combat sports that fight was just the perfect soup of you know just bringing two sports together
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
selling us on the idea that conor mcgregor had a chance of winning that fight floyd might get knocked out right which there was no chance he wasn't gonna get touched there was no chance and the people that really knew knew yeah but i think even me who had been covering boxing for a couple years at that point like i believed because conor made you believe because he was one of the best salesmen yeah uh out there and
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Yeah. I mean, that fight was great until the fight started. You know? Everything about the promotion was great until the fight started. And then you're like, wait, what?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
A little different. Like, Conor was... And Conor looked awkward throwing punches. Foot speed. And that's what boxing has become now. I mean, the fights that sell are these celebrity fights. You know, it's Jake Paul, Mike Tyson. Like, that fight did incredibly well for Netflix. Also, great business model. Same... Had some of the same elements. Yeah. But, you know...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
You can't fake Floyd Mayweather, who's still active at the time. He was older, but still active. And Conor McGregor, who's at the peak of his prime.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
You can't fake that with a boxer who's a celebrity boxer who nobody's ever thought was really all that good. And Jake Paul.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And Mike Tyson, who's 56. Like, you're not.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But it had a lot of those elements like, oh, this guy can knock out Mike Tyson. Or, oh, Mike Tyson's going to finally knock him out. I mean, everyone's still waiting for Jake Ball to get knocked out. Right. And it hasn't happened. And it won't happen because the people making his fights won't put him against somebody to knock him out. And there are...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I mean, there's two dozen boxers out there that can knock out Jake Paul in two rounds.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And most of those boxers that could knock Jake Paul out won't sell tickets. Because you don't even know who they are. Right. And it's sad that you have to, you know, I mean, I hate to say it, but I worked on the Evander Holyfield fight. I mean, this is a career moment. Donald Trump called that fight.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
This is down in Florida. It's in between presidencies. Yeah.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
he was i guess hanging out mar-a-lago didn't have much to do triller puts on this fight it's oscar delahoya fighting vitor belfort again like this boxing crossover with an active mma fighter like right at the end and oscar was certainly big enough to carry this fight and then he got coveted like two i think it was two weeks before the fight he gets coveted triller spent all the money what do we do they call oscar they call um evander holyfield
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
which I made for him, but I didn't even need the camera. That was the whole point. But that was it. Once I had that, started doing corporate video. And I think the good thing is that I didn't know what I wanted to do, which allowed me to do a lot of different things.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Sitting on the couch, also in his 50s. Now, the thing with Evander is, again, Evander can sell fights. He had enough of a name to salvage this thing. Evander's in shape all the time. He looks like he can fight right now. But looks like he can fight and can fight are two totally different things.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
These are 58-year-old hips. And I remember his media workout because they did a media workout. And it just, everything looks slow. And I did that production. And I remember telling my camera operator, shoot really tight. Because really tight, like slow doesn't look that slow. And wide, slow looks really slow. And I remember watching it and I go, I think Saturday night's gonna be ugly.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And it was, I mean, he got knocked out. That was the one time I ever worked a fight that I think everybody working the fight felt dirty. Like, why are we doing this? Why is this happening? But Trump called that fight. That was crazy. I have a picture. It was like me in a suit standing there. I'm like, I just put his earpiece in because, again, tiny crew. So I'm also the guy doing that, right?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Right. And the day before the shoot, they're like, oh, your entire crew has to go through Secret Service, like background checks. And almost everyone made it through. And I was like, oh, God. Then we had to, like, negotiate deals. Like, okay, can we sit in the hallway? They won't be in the room with him. Like, all this. Like, this is the only time I've ever had to deal with this on a production.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And I just have a picture of me standing over him and Donald Jr. And he's, like, looking up at me like this. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I was telling him, you know. Yeah. But it's just a funny picture. That's crazy. It was just a weird time.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And, you know, the first television pilot that I shot, which I still think would be a good show that never went anywhere, was a show called Music School. We went to different college music festivals, like, you know, their spring festivals. We shot our pilot at Rutgers Fest, which was my alma mater.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I have a burning desire to create. If I don't, you know. There are days that go by where there's no shoot, right? I don't have a shoot every day. I wish I did, I guess. But there are just days that you don't. And if there's a day and you're sitting around the house and you're watching TV and you just get to the end of the day, it feels so unproductive.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And it's almost a double negative, but I don't know how to not – create and I don't feel right when I don't. And that could be TikToks. That could just be making a five-second TikTok and putting it out there. But you're creating and you're putting something out in the world and then you're watching to see if people watch it.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I mean, the instant gratification that you get from social media is it's a drug. Love it. The irony is the one platform I've never tried to kind of grow is my own Instagram. That's the one that I've never... It's just people that I know. That's it.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But my TikTok, I've grown way bigger than Instagram because I'm doing that more as a creative outlet to put videos out there and see if I can hit the algorithm and all this stuff. I need that because the double negative there is if I don't have it, I feel incomplete and unwhole. And that's what's cool about doing a big documentary project that unlike...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
doing contract work and doing shows you know there's a date of that show there's a meeting for the show there's a pre-pro and then a setup and then you do the show yeah and then it's over yeah with a documentary especially something that i'm writing and directing there's this sense of like it's there like for the entire duration of the project it's going on it's happening and my brain's always working you know right now we're getting towards the end of production this doc i haven't even turned on a television i haven't watched since the super bowl yeah
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I don't think I've turned on a television.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And by the way, I was working during the Super Bowl also. I was directing a concert and then there was like a screen with the Super Bowl on. First time that's ever happened in my life. Wow. Because I am a big sports fan. Yeah. But... I haven't watched TV at all because my mind is so in like create mode. And I think that is deeper than the why. Because you could think about the why.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I think the because is innately buried inside of you.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
that was for any rd played like shot pharrell like like first thing i ever shot it was like pharrell it's like oh okay there you go and uh it was a cool show we had a z100 dj his name was nico he like hosted the show i still think that's a cool show and would sell um shot a couple pilots but along the way just started making money um the corporate video stuff that like everybody does you know dentist office or like whatever and then 2012 was my big break when i had uh the wild idea to make a documentary about back to the future
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I love that. And I think the people that are closest to me in my life, it's hard for them to necessarily understand the hours that I put in or the fact that there's no five o'clock bell. And that when my phone rings at 10 o'clock at night for work, I don't think twice about answering it. Because that's how it's been for the last literally 20 years. That doesn't stop. And
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I'm sure plenty of people would tell me how unhealthy that is, that there's no work life balance, but like work is life and not that it should be, but it's my life. Yeah. And that's because I don't have a job. You know, I'm not doing a job that I hate.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
It's so cliche to say, oh, you know, do something you love and you never work a day in your life. But it's true. Find anybody who does what they love and they'll agree. You know, cliches are cliches for a reason. Yeah. I live that dream every day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
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Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
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Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It needs some refinement. Never got to the fit and COVID kind of killed that as we were sort of getting to the finish line. Maybe I'll pick that back up. Maybe I won't. Who knows? But to think it's been 10 years since the last release.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I think one of the interesting gifts, and I'll use that word that I have, is that what interests me, I think, interests a lot of people. It's a weird... gift, but I think over the course of the last 15, 20 years, I've kind of figured that out.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I mean, I could not be looking forward to that more because the only thing more fun than working on a long-term project is releasing the long-term project.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Since it was your idea, definitely yes to the second question. Thank you. And the first question, I like that. I like that idea. I would definitely be ready to do that.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
You know, we get some of the big names at the top, some of the small names at the bottom.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
No, I mean, you know, I'm thinking Rogan's got to be in there.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But then, yeah, I think this is... That could be next. I had another good idea, too, the other day, which I already forgot. Uh-oh. It was podcasting.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I'm into some obscure stuff, and I think you have to be, and I think you have to be a little nuts, and I think you have to be willing to work 22 hours a day sometimes. You need all that, but I think as we're going to get into kind of that Back to the Future doc... I'm just into what interests other people. And that's what I think a good story is.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
So Instagram, the one that I don't optimize is Jason underscore Aaron. It's one A-A-R-O-N. And that's the best place. Okay. And of course, shout out to Youngry, which is the agency that we just started. Young and hungry. So Youngry.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Yeah, it was Ankur's name. Shout out to Ankur Garg who came up with that. But started that early this year. That's kind of where we're taking all our talents on the sort of corporate and production side. You know, Youngry is a full-service marketing agency. I had a video on Creative there.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
So all of Youngry's socials are another good place because he does a much better job of promoting us than I do.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I think far too often things are a little too artsy. And I think that artsy really is nothing more than saying it's just so niche. And there's nothing wrong with it. It interests you and maybe it interests 10 other people. But I find that the stuff that I'm interested in is what interests a million other people or 10 million other people.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And it's weird to say this, but I think I'm just an average guy. No. No. Not letting you get away with that, Jason. I think, you know, I like to watch sports and I like to watch movies and I, you know, the entertainment that's supposed to appeal to the masses appeals to me. And in turn, I could take that and turn it around and the things that become interesting to me.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
become interesting to other people. The documentary I'm working on now, it's about eating healthy. And I thought I hit a big cultural moment hitting the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future, which was huge and we'll get into it. But now I'm doing a documentary about eating healthy. I mean, everybody eats. Literally, there are so little things that as human beings, we all have in common.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
We don't all have the same political beliefs. We don't all have the same religion. We don't all have the same – wear the same clothing. But we all eat. We all eat. We all breathe. I don't know that a documentary on breathing would be interesting. Maybe it would be. But outside of that, what do we really all have in common?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And that wasn't something that I was thinking about when I had the idea for this.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But over the course of a year producing this documentary and people would say, hey, what are you working on? And I'd say, oh, a documentary about eating healthy. One hundred percent of the people I've talked to have been interested in it or want to strike up a conversation about it or want to know what the angle is.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And that's even to me, that's like mind blowing because that's a hundred layers beyond back to the future. Yeah. I have way too many friends in their 20s that I've never even seen back to the future.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
It was the year was 2012. Yeah. And the Genesis story is amazing because I was still working in event film production. So I kind of got to that point where I was shooting a lot of weddings. Yeah. Bar mitzvahs, whatever. And this was sort of the odd phone call. Somebody who was having a bar mitzvah for their son wanted me to make a short film that they were going to play at the bar mitzvah.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And the guy sold insurance. I don't know why everyone in my life sells insurance. But the guy sold insurance. But his calling in life was to be a film producer. He wanted it so badly. He loved that world. And so this was his opportunity to write a script and act and produce something.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And it was a little hokey, but basically he takes his son, who's now 13, takes him back to when he was 13 and then to when his grandfather was 13. And they do this through a DeLorean time machine and they go and they see their grandfathers and everybody in the family got to be in the film and it was fun. Well, he rented a DeLorean and this is out in Long Island. And the day that we were filming.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Everybody who passed by stopped their cars dead in the street, got out, took pictures of this DeLorean. And I was like, wait a second. It's like I love Back to the Future. I guess a lot of other people love Back to the Future. But, you know, this is a fairly affluent area of Long Island where, you know, a DeLorean at the time, you could buy a perfect condition DeLorean for like 30 grand.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And people are pulling over their $100,000 cars to take a picture of this relic. Right. From the early 1980s. And that was it. That's all it took. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. I should make a documentary about how the DeLorean affects so many people all these years later, you know, from Back to the Future. And that was it. That's all it took. And then I just had...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I had the ability because I had the equipment to go out. I found the guy up in Massachusetts. It was a huge collector, Back to the Future stuff. Went up there for a day, shot a pitch trailer, put it on Kickstarter, raised $45,000 on the first Kickstarter. And that was, I think we had 600 backers for the first one. But that's all it took to know, okay, this project is viable.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
They want it to be made. I thought $45,000 was like a million dollars to make a film. Because to me, it's, I'm doing it. It's all my equipment. Like, that's just so much money. I burned through that money in like three months. It was gone. because our first couple of shoots were in Vegas, LA. And it was just the travel that just ate through the money.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Ultimately, we had another producer who came on board and he invested in the film to become a producer because we had already sort of kicked the ball down the hill a little bit. So that brought in more money. And then we always knew we would do a second Kickstarter where we raised $150,000, which to me was $10 million. And I feel like some of that money was already also spent before we even got it.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But again, it was enough to finish the film. So we basically had zero...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
out-of-pocket cost um you know we just had fan investors essentially who got paid back in t-shirts and blu-rays and license plates so you go uh all it took was just that spark and knowing that hey the public wants to make this film it's clear the media attention we got was unbelievable i say we were we were in every publication from national geographic to playboy and that is with no exaggeration we were in both of those publications and everything you know the reporter and
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
All the stuff you'd expect. But just everyone picked it up. And they were sending cars to my house to take me to Dirty Rock to go on MSNBC. I'll never forget. My second appearance on MSNBC was right before the doc came out. And I'm on... I don't even remember what the show was. I'm on the show talking to the host. And they're like... we have to break.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Bernie Sanders has just announced his run for presidency. I'm like, okay, I guess Bernie Sanders is booting me. And it was just moments like that. It kept happening over and over and over. We promoted the film at like seven Comic-Cons. We went to London where we were the opening panel on the main stage of the London Film and Comic-Con.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And the panel after us was 15 members from the original cast of Back to the Future. It was the largest assembly of that. And we were their opening act. And it's just like,
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
How? How does this happen? Amazing. All because I just sat there and said, oh, I should make a documentary about DeLorean. And oh, three years from now, there's this big 30th anniversary back to the future. And it's the date in the film, October 21st, 2015, when they go into the future. That would be a good date to release a film.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
To the point that you get scared because I had the thought, well, who am I? I'm just some...
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
you know filmmaker from long island yeah universal studios is gonna want to do this like i can't do this because you know they're nope you know and you gain a lot of confidence through an experience like that where you just go no i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do it first and i'm gonna do it better and i think that once everybody realized how big this anniversary was i'm sure universal would have loved to do it but i was way ahead of them um
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And so, you know, I beat a big studio to the punch, which is, it's crazy to think about.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
I mean, almost everyone who's in the film I met, Steven Spielberg is the only one. He was busy on post-production and film. So he did our interview. His team basically said, okay, what cameras do you want to film on? What's your framing? What microphone are you using? How do you want it shot? Send us the questions. We'll ask for you. Yeah. I try to fight back, but I lost that battle.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But everyone, you know, to sit this close to Robert Zemeckis and talk to him about a film that he made is like is mind blowing. Michael J. Fox, who lives pretty close to where we are right now. I mean, we just sat and talked about hockey like we're both like hockey guys. Yeah, it was weird. It was weird.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
It's so surreal. Oddly, I think the date was January 7, 2015. I don't know why I remember that. And there was a snowstorm here in New York. He has his house and office are combined uptown. Not going to give out his address.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Nor do I remember it, but just the date. Yeah. So there's a lot going on, right? Commuting into it. So one of the things about this documentary is we did very little filming in New York. Most of the filming, Adam F. Goldberg, who is the writer and creator of the show The Goldbergs on ABC, he was an executive producer, which is a story in and of itself.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
My college degree is in criminal justice. I did nothing with it. I was going to go to law school. Yeah. Dropped out three months before I was going to start and was just 22 years old. A degree in something I wasn't going to use. What do I do? I had a little bit of a cushion just to hang out for a little bit. My dad had a sales business. I was always creative. I was always into Photoshop.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But he had come on and he basically gave us carte blanche access to the Sony lot in LA to film as many interviews as we needed on the set of The Goldbergs, which was perfect because that show was set in the 80s.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
So the set looked like the 80s. Yeah. So we had filmed Dean Cundey over there, Leah Thompson. We did on that set. I finally convinced Adam to get in the documentary. I'm like, you are a part of this. Right. Because the show had done an episode on the Goldbergs, which I filmed BTS of them filming their episode, which was also like another out of body experience.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
And Michael J. Fox was one of the rare interviews that we did in New York. I mean, almost I off the top of my head, I can't even think of another one. So the weird part of that is it's not weird for me to wake up in my own bed and go to work. I mean, I do it all the time.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
But for this documentary to wake up in my own bed, get up, go into, you know, come into the city and film an interview that was very different than almost everything else on this project. So. The buildup wasn't there. Like I didn't get on a plane. I didn't go somewhere. I didn't, I didn't have to go to a, to a movie studio that day. Yeah. I just got up and went and then, and it was snowing.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Uh, so there's like the snow, which is like, you know how it is here. It's just a pain. Yeah. So now you're dealing with all that. We're unloading a grip truck in the street and the snow. And like, we had a hand carry everything into his house and make sure that we didn't get snow everywhere. Cause it's this guy's house. Yeah. And the next thing you know, and then we're setting up an interview.
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
It's like, okay, I've done this 10,000 times. And then Michael J. Fox walks, walks it. And it's like, damn, like if nine-year-old me could see this right now, like this is crazy. And that was, it's so out of body. And then afterwards, like I said, we're just talking about hockey. Like my team's breaking down and we're just, oh yeah, I go to the Ranger games all the time. Oh yeah, where do you sit?
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm friends with Cam Neely. And he's Canadian and he's a Bruins guy and a Rangers guy. And it's just so weird. And then I saw him again,
Mick Unplugged
The Jason Aron Effect: Bridging Worlds of Film, Sports, and Culture
a few times uh london film and comic-con was one of them and you know we got like the semi-vip treatment at all these things and and like we were just like kind of hang out backstage just talk and yeah it's weird to be you end up on the same level as these people like you watch on tv and you know when you're a kid like these these people are heroes yeah uh athletes and actors and whatever and then and then they just become a part of your life it's it's